Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles You're learning with nine to five English. Business English for the workplace. Hi Tim here with another nine-to-five English lesson. In today's lesson we're going to learn how to talk about imagined situations or hypotheticals in English. Humans are always using their imagination sometimes we think about what might happen in the future other times we have to imagine different situations in order to figure out what is the best decision to make today or in the future and when we talk about ideas like this we use particular words and structures for example when we introduce a hypothetical or imagined situation there are a few expressions we can use we often start with the words say or suppose so something like suppose you were the boss is understood as imagine you were the boss you can also ask a question using what if such as what if you were the boss that word if is especially important we'll see that word again later in this lesson for now let's practice these different ways of introducing hypothetical situations listen to each example then repeat it for yourself ready let's get started what if you were manager for one day say you had a million dollars to spend on a new project suppose you took the job in Spain just imagine you still worked in Chicago one really important thing to notice is that we use the past tense to introduce an imagined situation we don't say suppose you take the job instead we say suppose you took the job so we've looked at how to introduce a hypothetical situation in the present but what language do we use when we discuss an imagined situation well in this case we use conditional sentences a conditional sentence has two parts one part uses if and the other part uses could or would for example if I took the job I would make more money but here's the thing we don't always say the if part I mean if someone asks what would happen if you took a new job you might just say I would make more money let's try talking about hypothetical situations using if and would and could remember to repeat the examples after you hear them if the stock price was lower we could afford it I would probably be a lot happier in Europe with a company car I could get around more easily for one thing we would see a big increase in sales did you notice that with can mean if I had so with a company car means if I had a company car now so far everything we've practiced is about the present that is we're imagining if something were true now but what happens when we imagine if the past was different well this gets a bit trickier first of all instead of saying something like if I lived in Seattle you'd say if I had lived in Seattle the had done part tells us that you're imagining something about the past so stayed is for a present imagined situation while had stayed is for a past imagined situation then instead of would and could do something you would say would have or could have done something so instead of I would be happy you can say I would have been happy I know this sounds like a lot of extra words but it should make sense once you try it all together so let's try some practice with using past hypotheticals once again repeat the examples you hear with better pay I would have stayed at my last job I could have studied law if I had done better on the LSAT we would have bought them out if we had had the money without more help we couldn't have met the deadline one other thing to notice is that you can switch the order of the sentence parts you can start with the if statement or you can finish with the if statement it's really up to you okay so we've practiced some ways of talking about hypothetical situations but how does this sound in a conversation let's listen to a short dialogue between Wendy and Bill they are imagining how things would have been different if they had had more money to spend on marketing let's listen we really needed a bigger marketing budget right what if we'd had another 10000 to spend yeah then we could have run those TV ads and maybe sales wouldn't have dropped last month how did that sound bill asked about a past hypothetical situation and then they both imagined what could have or would have happened now it's your turn to practice will repeat the dialogue but this time we're going to be bout the second speaker's words you have to say those parts yourself remember to ask a question about a hypothetical extra $10,000 then say what wouldn't have happened to sales ready here we go we really needed a bigger marketing budget yeah then we could have run those TV ads you alright that's all for this lesson we've learned some great ways to talk about hypothetical situations we'll be back soon with some more useful English expressions until then so long and happy learning
A2 hypothetical imagined suppose situation imagining repeat 925 English Video Lesson 28 – Using Hypotheticals in English | Business English Pod 4 0 林宜悉 posted on 2020/07/03 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary